We set up our first community centre about 20 years ago in the back of a derelict building. Our focus was on drugs, addiction and mental health. The Big Life group was launched in 2002, and was the first social-enterprise group in the UK.

We employ 300 full-time staff – nurses, teachers, social workers, labourers – and have contracts with the Department of Health and local authorities to deliver healthcare to people who are not accessing their services.

We have a range of projects, including working with people who are not registered with a GP and primary mental health care services across the north-west. Half our income comes from public-sector contracts and half from trading – fees from nurseries, rental income from our centres, producing and selling the Big Issue in the north.

Organisations like ours have been practising the "big society" forever. We welcome some aspects of the bill – opening up the market to people whose needs are not being met by the public sector is good – but worry about a wider destabilisation of the NHS through competition in mainstream services.

The private sector will cherrypick the most profitable services, leaving the NHS without the critical mass to provide the rest.